This blog is intended to do "exactly what it says on the tin" so below are some of my 'Thoughts on Music'. They predominantly concern recent matters but will not always do so. I'll also happily turn to matters of the music industry more generally if and when I feel so inclined. So there!
If you don't agree with something please feel free to add a comment. They are moderated by me (so I'll get to read it) and I might even reply. Above all however just enjoy whatever music you like!
Richard

Thursday, May 08, 2008

This is not a thank-you noteThis is just a few words that I wrote.They were never meant for you to hearIt's just that they kept ringing in my ear.

Now you can read me like an open bookRead about the beatings that I tookAbout happiness all shot to hellA weekend at the Thunderbird Motel.

At the Thunderbird Motel.

Well, the bitter moon is hanging lowNeil Diamond pours his heart out on the radioAnd nothing seems to go my waySad, sad songs and cheap Chardonnay.

Three days in the wildernessWas all it took to make my life a messMy happiness all shot to hellA weekend at the Thunderbird motel.

At the Thunderbird Motel.

This is hardly a cheerful song but may be a tonic for those revising for exams because things will get better soon - believe me. It is also, perhaps, not a well known one. The band is Oh Laura, the singer Frida Öhrn and the album A Song Inside My Head, a Demon In My Bed. The UK release was 2008, on Cosmos Records, but it was released in some parts of northern Europe in 2007.

It is not as if Scandinavia - Oh Laura is a five-piece band from Sweden - is ever remotely short of good new music and 2008 is looking particularly interesting on this front but this is rather different to much that we have become accustomed to in the last few years.

It is not all gloom, perhaps in Scandinavian pop it never is, but on this one even the ostensibly optimistic 'Out Of Bounds' still has worrisome shadows.It is consistently good and certainly one of the best albums I have bought in 2008.